Strauss-Kahn Released After Questioned in Prostitution Probe

French disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves free, in a car, from a French police station, on Feb. 22, 2012 in Lille, northern France, after two days of questioning about a series of sex parties. Photographer: Francois Lo Presti/AFP/Getty Images

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former
head of the International Monetary Fund, was released from
police custody yesterday after almost two days of questioning as
part of an investigation into a French prostitution ring.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, turned himself in Feb. 21 to answer
questions and spent a night in a jail cell in Lille, in northern
France. He will appear before judges leading the investigation
on March 28, Le Monde said today, citing police documents.

“There is nothing you can read into his being released”
to tell where the case may go, said Christopher Mesnooh, a
Paris-based lawyer not involved in the case.

Strauss-Kahn could be named as a material witness or
charged, a spokeswoman for the prosecution said, declining to be
identified citing office policy. She did not immediately return
calls today concerning Le Monde’s report.

He gave up his post as managing director of the IMF last
year after being arrested in New York for sexually assaulting a
hotel maid. Prosecutors dropped the case because of concerns
about the woman’s credibility and Strauss-Kahn returned to
France, where he faced separate accusations of attempted rape,
which were also dropped.

Strauss-Kahn “answered all questions,” Frederique
Baulieu, his lawyer, told television cameras outside the police
station. “It is now in the hands of the judges.”

She did not immediately return calls today about the date
of the next meeting.

French builder Eiffage SA filed an embezzlement complaint
after an internal probe found an employee spent as much as
50,000 euros ($66,000) to pay for women to travel as far as
Washington to have sex with Strauss-Kahn.

Active Role

Investigators are trying to determine whether Strauss-Kahn
knew corporate money was used to pay the women and whether he
played an active role organizing sex parties he allegedly
attended, or knew the women attending were prostitutes.

Prostitution and paying for sex are legal in France, while
procuring prostitutes for someone else isn’t.

Strauss-Kahn was also questioned by agents charged with
internal investigations of the French police regarding his ties
to a regional police chief indicted in the affair.

Strauss-Kahn has denied wrongdoing in relation to the
investigation and said in a Nov. 11 statement from his lawyers
that he wanted to be questioned, “to put an end to the
dangerous and spiteful insinuations” in the media.

The Lille investigation has led to charges against eight
people.

“A lot of other people associated with this affair have
been indicted,” Mesnooh said. “Their links were a little more
direct perhaps than the links of Mr. Strauss-Kahn with the
prostitution side and the abuse of corporate assets side.”